Brasilia, Brazil:The Head of Brazil’s Electoral Court has overturned the attempt by outgoing President Mr. Jair Bolsonaro’s Party to invalidate the results of October’s run-off election.
The Supreme Court Justice, Mr. Alexandre de Moraes, also fined the parties in Mr. Bolsonaro’s coalition $4.3 million (22.9 million reais) for their bad faith litigation.
Mr. Bolsonaro had challenged the Brazilian Presidential election that he lost to Mr. Lula da Silva by claiming that votes from some machines should be invalidated.
The complete bad faith of the plaintiff’s bizarre and illicit request was proven, both by the refusal to add to the initial petition and the total absence of any evidence of irregularities and the existence of a totally fraudulent narrative of the facts.
Mr. De Moraes stated.
Mr. De Moraes had previously ruled that Mr. Bolsonaro’s Party could suffer if it made such a challenge and demanded extra information from the Party, which the Party declined to provide.
The Justice was commenting on the request given by Liberal Party lawyers, who cited a software bug in the majority of Brazil’s voting machines to argue all votes they recorded should be invalidated.
Mr. Lula’s victory has been recognized by the Superior Electoral Court and acknowledged by Brazil’s leading politicians and international allies. Mr. Bolsonaro himself has allowed Lula’s government to begin preparing for a Presidential transition in the days after October’s run-off election.
Earlier, Ms. Gleisi Hoffmann, the President of the Workers Party, described Mr. Bolsonaro’s election complaint as “chicanery.”